In the Philippines September starts the Ber season. That is because the all the month’s end in Ber and that is what marks the coming Holiday season of Christmas. The stores are already displaying and selling Christmas decorations and you will hear the holiday music.

Soon the houses will be lit up with Christmas lights, Christmas trees will be set up and their decorations will be everywhere. But this is not the only signs of the upcoming holiday season.

There is something else that becomes noticeable that the holiday system is coming and that is the increased presence of the Lumad beggars. Lumad is the Cebuano or Bisaya word for the indigenous peoples of the southern Philippines. There is always a presence of these people, but the amount magnifies this time of year. Many of these people live in the mountains and highlands of Mindanao. During the holiday season many come into Davao by busses and trucks.

These people, the most noticeable are the females. They are in long loose skirts and T-shirts, darker completion and by all places there is a business or shopping. Many carry young children or babies in their arms and come up to you, tap you on the arm if you are not looking towards them and then put their hand out or they are carrying a plastic cup. They will motion to their mouths to say “I am hungry” or some know the word hungry. They will be at intersections and go from ca to car, tapping on the window and then motioning to their mouths or put their hand out. Some small boys will tape a few metal cans together and come up to your car and play the cans like Bongos and then put their hands out.

If you try to ignore them, many will continue to tap on your car window or your arm. No matter if you shake your head no, or say no or “wala kwarta” which means “no Money” many will continue to stand there.

It is especially bad when they see a foreigner; our lighter skin is like a beacon on a dark night. They will ignore all others and come up to you and start the routine. Many have no shame and will walk around with a baby in their arms, with their blouse raised and breast feeding the babies.

I can understand the poverty here in the Philippines and the lack of government support for the poor and unemployed, but this bussing in of the Lumad for the Christmas season to beg, and then bring them back to the mountains for the rest of the year has to be hard on these people and also on the City. The sidewalks and markets get full and so many in the streets with the heavy traffic makes a difficult situation and a danger for all.

One of the problems in Davao is parking, especially in places downtown. Few businesses have parking and many of the ones that do have parking limit it to only their customers which is understandable. Well, when I have been downtown, you will see men out in the road pointing to a parking spot. They will help guide you into your spot and then keep an eye on your car while you’re out doing your business. When you return, he will guide you out of the spot so you do not hit the vehicle behind you and will watch for oncoming traffic. Then you give them 5-15 pesos for their help.

At the public market, again parking is hard to find. There are a few areas for parking and each of these areas is manned by an attendant. He will wave to you to wait or where to park. Since many curbs are high, he will watch the front so you do not crash your bumper. For this we give him 15 pesos which is the normal parking fee here. We always park in the same area and have gotten to know him to joke with. I do not know but I assume he has to give a percentage to the management of the market.

At the market, there are many that will walk around the mall selling bags of calamansi, a small lime type of fruit used as a condiment, garlic, small shallot type onions. Most are sold by your children to help make money for their meals and snacks during the week when at school. These children will also offer to help a shopper carry their bags. We have 2 little girls that will help us and through them we have met some of their friends at the market.
At intersections, besides the beggars you will see people selling small bags of peanuts or a “taho” which is a warm chocolate beverage with sago beads which is either made from soy beans or tapioca.

There are also people selling small towel squares which many people put under their shirts by their necks to help absorb perspiration and protect their clothing. Many use this too when riding the jeepneys or walking to hold over their nose because of all the vehicle exhaust.

There is one young man we see often at one of the intersections. He looks like he might have Cerebral Palsy. Instead of just begging as many disabled do, but he will walk up, look for leaves in your windshield wiper well, or bird droppings on the window or hood and will clean them. We will give him 5 or 10 pesos. This man, even though it is not a major service, at least he is offering a small service to earn a little money.

Another way some make income is by selling fruit. Filipinos like to eat oranges and grapes for a healthy snack. By many of office buildings or areas where there is a good flow of foot traffic you will see men with bags of oranges or grapes selling them to passersby’s. They sometimes will walk by cars when stopped at a light. One will stop by and say hello and ask if I want to buy grapes. Unfortunately when I see him I am having coffee to kill some time before I head out to some meeting and do not want to leave fruit in the car to heat up during the day. I talked to him one day, he is in his mid 20’s, married with one child and supports the family with this business.

Filipinos eat 5 to 6 times a day. Their meals are usually lighter and smaller than we usually eat in the States. For many it is a plate of rice with some fish, meat or vegetables. Because of this they have snack or marinda about 10am and again around 3pm. During the mid mornings and afternoons you will see mainly ladies, but sometimes men with a carryall with some type of cake or bread for sale and some with banana-q which is a fried, sugar coated banana on a stick. These people buy their wares from a bakery or vendor and go office to office selling them at break times.

Another way of making money is finding in garbage or buying plastic, corrugated boxes, metal, wires, broken fans and even car batteries. You will see men pushing push carts or carts welded to the front of a bicycle. They will go down residential streets either calling out that they are buying or stopping at garbage containers looking for items to sell. Some is sold to scrap businesses or with broken fans and appliances to locations that fix and resell them. Many things we would throw away in America, here they will repair.

Another big business you see here is selling cell phone loads. Most people here do not buy a monthly cell phone service. Instead you buy a load. Either a load card for a set amount where you send a message to a number and with the activation code in the text or an E-load where the vendor sends a load from their “Load wallet” to give you amount you paid for. You can buy as little as 5 pesos which would be good for 5 text messages to the same cell carrier to as high as 500 pesos. With a 500 peso load you get 85 free texts. With this, you will see stores, kiosks in the mall to a street vendor in a crude wooden stand covered with banners displaying which cell carrier they sell loads for. The profit is very small, but with Filipinos living with their cell phone in their hand and constantly texting, they constantly need a load.

You will also see these crude wooden stands selling anything from foods, candies, loads, beverages. These stands usually pay no rent and someone sits all day just waiting for customers.

These people are not rich and earn very little profit, but these people are at least trying to earn enough to support themselves and/or their families instead of begging.

Here in Davao as elsewhere a lot of homes and businesses have lights and decorations on display and you hear a lot of Christmas songs playing. You see salespeople wearing Santa hats and most people say to you “Merry Christmas”

One of the differences that is hard for me to get used to is the beggars. Most are Lumads. Lumads are indigenous peoples mainly from the provinces.

Around the beginning of December they start showing up in the neighborhood going house to house. They stop in front of your gate (thankfully most if not all homes have walls and or metal fences and locking gates) and sing Christmas Carols. They are in groups as few as 2 or more. Sometimes they are kids, some are so old, so you run the gambit. Some even have tambourines or native string instruments. They will continue to sing until you go out and give them 2 pesos ( about 5 cents US)

Once I a while is fine, but some days you will have many. If I am outside on the patio, I think their eyes light up and their brain says “Foreigner, he must have money” hahaha
When our niece from out of town visited, she had great responses. One was “Shhhh there is a baby sleeping” and another was “Sorry but the owner is not home at the moment”

An interesting sales pitch to bring in Christmas shopping is at the mall we most frequent. Gaisano Mall has a prize giveaway.

First of all, I need to explain, the mall owns the department store and the super market.

They have a deal, for every 400 pesos spent at the dept. store or 800 at the market, you get one play. You have your receipts checked and they give you slips for all the games you can play. Then you go up to the computers where cute girls in MS Santa outfits log into the computer and set the amount of plays you have.
Then you enter a 3 digit number for each play. After you’re done a printout comes out with your prizes. You then go to the next counter to redeem them.
The prizes can be as big as a motor cycle, washing machine, furniture. Then there are dish sets, rice cookers, bicycles, electric grills. But most are small rolls of wrapping paper, wash cloth, 1 pair of socks, scarf’s, balloons, badminton sets, ping pong sets and others too many to list.
2 times when we were playing the computer came up with “Special Prize” and you had to enter your name, address and phone number. The first time I was so excited. I was hoping for the motorcycle. I filled in my info and what did I win? I got a 5×7 picture frame. The next time it was a set of 2 small canisters with waterproof lids.

To All that read this, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year too all.